Advice For My 2009 Mac Pro

Hi All

I currently have an Early 2009 2.66ghz Mac Pro, 16GB RAM, SSD, 10TB Storage, GTX285.
My main usage is heavy photoshop, handbrake, gaming (bootcamp).

I was hoping, like many of us, for a new Mac Pro to be announced this year, but there hasn't been any announcement and I am now considering what my current options are.

My thoughts are to upgrade the firmware to 5.1, upgrade the CPU to the W3680 (if I can find one available in the UK), put in 24GB 1333mhz RAM and the GTX680.

Would i see a large increase in performance for photoshop, handbrake & gaming (bootcamp)? I think the above would cost approx £950, would it be worth it?

Or should I continue to twiddle my thumbs and wait for the mythical 2013 Mac Pro?

Any help very much appreciated.

DPUser said:

I did the hex upgrade and love it... I actually bought my 2009 Mac used with the intent of "creating" my own 2010.

Provantage has the CPUs for $590 USD... would they ship to you?

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Thanks DPUser, I will take a look.
My main worry is does spending approx £950 justify a machine that will essentially be a 2010 spec with a fancy GPU?
Is the performance gain that good?
Thoughts?

xcodeSyn said:

According to the Geekbench score, the CPU upgrade alone would provide 66% increase from 8261 to 13739. With your other planned upgrades, you should at least see 30%-50% overall performance improvement. Whether this is satisfactory to you, as others already pointed out, depends on your own personal evaluation.

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Many thanks for the feedback - I think I'll go for it.